Tenancy renewal fee

Moved house last year and have just had a letter through that I have to pay £120 (!) to renew the tenancy for another 12 months. They mentioned there was a fee but I didn't expect this much. I've had to claim on my car insurance recently, pay excess, and a service and have insurance renewal this month which will be increased due to the claim and I really can't afford £120.

Is there any way I can get out of this or claim it ridiculous given no details are changing and they are basically doing nothing for the money?

I've done a bit of research about it, but I'm never sure what is correct and current information when trawling through forum posts on google.

As far as I understand it, if we don't sign another contract we will go on to a Statutory Periodic Tenancy, which is a rolling contract, where we can give 1 months notice if we want to leave, and the landlord can kick us out with 2 months notice.

I think we're pretty good tenants - pay rent on time and never make any fuss, so I don't see why the landlord would want us gone.

as you mention, tell the agent to swing, you are happy to hold over under a periodic tenancy. If you have contact details for the landlord you can tell him the same and your reasons if you like. You dont have to though, the agent should let them know anyway. If you do sign a new lease, then in theory the landlord will also have to pay another fee (about 5-9% of annual rent depending) to the agent. He may be quite happy letting you hold over without a new lease in place as it might not crystallize the fee obligation for him

These fee's really piss me off, and I'm a landlord. its nothing more than blatant profiteering from the LA's.

You can try and call their bluff & tell 'em you'll stay on the AST rolling contract (2 months notice from LL / 1 month from tenant) - they'll likely say the LL would like you to re-sign (whether they do or not). Obvs if youre a good tenant the LL may be happy for you to stay. If you can liase with the LL direct I'd try and ask them if they're happy with you on the rolling AST.

One of my tenants has been on the rolling AST for nearly 2.5 yrs - we have a good relationship (I think!) and Im not raising rent / risking an empty property for the sake of a few quid a month. I deal direct though so neither of us have to get shafted by Letting agents.

you have to leave 2 months after he has served notice (assuming monthly periodic tenancy)

The period of a tenancy depends on how often the rent is paid. If rent is paid monthly the period of the tenancy is one month, if the rent is paid weekly the period of tenancy is one week and so forth. The periodic tenancy begins immediately after the fixed term expires, so if the fixed term expires on the 10th then the period of the tenancy begins on the 11th, so provided rent was paid monthly the last day of each period of tenancy would be the10th of each month. Therefore the Section 21 notice would have to expire on the 10th of a month and be served a minimum of two months before the tenth of that month.

Let's say worst case the landlord isn't happy about this and wants us to sign a new contract but we don't, will we have to leave at the end of the tenancy or 2 months afterwards?

That's about the size of it. Fees like these are the basic business model of many letting agents, together with charging over the odds for chasing up references and acting as a go between for credit references and tradesmen. If you're going to rent through one, you need to see a schedule of fees up front to avoid this extra cost, or to allow you to budget for it.

If you do sign a fresh tenancy, you should benefiting from increased security during that year, rather than 2 or 1 month notice.

Just dug out the last email from the lot who let my flat for me - they are half the reason I am selling. They wanted £175 plus vat to find a new tenant. With the location of my flat, that involves phoning up the top 10 on the heaving list of people looking for a flat in the area, and letting to whoever gets there first.

Is it likely that the letting agents will actually communicate the truth to the landlord? I'm worried if I don't sign a new contract they'll blag him in to kicking us out.

From what I understand, the notice can only be served once we're on the periodic tenancy and so we'll have at least 2 months here after the end of our current 12 months.

I don't really fancy being shafted like this regularly so I'll keep my eye on gumtree for private landlords and suitable properties in the area. Seems a bit drastic and possibly is, but I'm skint and fed up and can't be bothered with it.

As a landlord I was constantly shocked by how much I was fleeced by various management companies - the biggest being the fee to the freeholders management co for the pleasure of subletting. Then I decided to sell, and found I'd been having it easy compared with the fees people demanded to supply the simplest documents for the sale - hundreds of pounds for a map of the property, for filling in a basic information questionnaire. I've bought property in (counts on fingers ...) seven countries, and England is by far the worst.

Not true, unless you have reached the end of a previous tenancy and have not been asked to vacate at the end of the tenancy. Savvy agents will issue a notice to quit at the end of the tenancy at the same time as issuing the tenancy, effectively preventing a rollover to periodic tenancy. Remember they want to be able to charge for this, to the tenant and landlord, neither of whom will have read their contracts or asked the correct questions before agreeing to these charges.

Our current tenancy isn't up until September, which is making me even more annoyed because they've already started blagging me about it and we've got months to stay.

Savvy agents will issue a notice to quit at the end of the tenancy at the same time as issuing the tenancy, effectively preventing a rollover to periodic tenancy.

Yes I thought this was probably the case, the letter has a respond form with tick boxes saying "Continue with 12 months tenancy", "Continue with 6 months tenancy", "We will leave at the end of the tenancy", or words to that effect.

This comes up on our flat every year (let through an agent) and I just ignore it and never pay. Its not worth the hassle for them to pursue it as its not like the landlord is going to kick you out for not paying the fee to the agent... 3rd year now without paying them.

Check your contract and re-read all the small print. My tenants had this the other year, £120 to re-new. He read his contract back to front and couldn't find mention of it anywhere. He also questioned what it was for and told them to do one. I was included on the emails and we spoke about it on the phone. They waived it and that was that.

As far as I understand it, if we don't sign another contract we will go on to a Statutory Periodic Tenancy, which is a rolling contract, where we can give 1 months notice if we want to leave, and the landlord can kick us out with 2 months notice.

This is correct. We sent a letter in response to the estate agent's letter demanding money saying "Thanks, but we'll move onto a Statutory Periodic Tenancy, thanks". We got another letter in 6 months asking us to renew, to which we sent another letter saying we were on an SPT and never heard from them again. No extra money ever changed hands.

Ignoring anything about your lease etc. you are perfectly entitled to do this and it is standard practice.

I went through Gumtree and never had to pay a tenancy fee or suspect "renewal fees". Unless you really like where you're living enough to stay and pay i would go elsewhere. The state of the rental market at the moment is so badly regulated these t*ss pieces seem to think they can charge whatever they want for thin air. Tell them to shove it up their a*ses, face to face... so they know exactly who they're dealing with

It would seem reasonable to charge a renewal fee, whether £120 is the right figure is a matter of debate. It's better than being kicked out, imagine the agent wanted to make a new tenant fee and kicked you out so they could put in another tenant they have on hand. This has happened to me, the agent (Singapore) was very open about the fact that a new tennent meant a bigger fee than me renewing (I had the option to extend but not a right)

Quite a lot of "advice" above concerning a lease that no one (perhaps other than the OP) has has sight of.

A fair point - no one has seen the agreement, but I've just re-read it and can see no mention of this fee. There is mention that they can deduct from my deposit any fees which are covered by the agreement, but since I can't find the renewal fee in the agreement presumably this means they can't take it out of the deposit.

Funnily enough, the OP didn't mention jurisdiction either, so some good guesswork on the statutory position too.

I'm in Manchester (Assuming that's what you mean here?)

The estate agents have just left me a missed call so I can't avoid them forever - does telling them I'm going to let the tenancy expire and run on to a rolling tenancy in any way put me in a worse position? I have the landlords address and phone number so may contact him directly.

1) Letter arrives saying what the OP's did plus a 10% increace of the rent, threats that rent might go even more with little notice if we didn't sign, getting evicted, etc etc.

2) Instructed the agents to swivel on it.

3) Letter arrives with wording allong the following lines "we have reviewed the market and decided your rent will be staying the same, you're now on a rolling contract", heard nothing from them untill we moved out.

I might have played it differently if rent's at the time were rising and negotiated a comprimise, but they'd actualy fallen slightly in the area we were living in so we we're in a strong position to just say no we'll pay what we've been paying, knowing they'd get even less (and an empty house) if we left.

OP, talk to your landlord about this and let them know whats happening. As i said before, my tenant had the same and wasn't a happy bunny. I knew nothing about this fee. He told the LA to go jump. I have just found his email telling them this.